Thirty Six

36 days until I get into a car with my Uncle, grandparents and mom and head off to BC for my cousin’s wedding. I leave Carman on September 5th, and a week after that I fly from Kelowna, BC after celebrating my 19th birthday with my grand-parents, to Vancouver- where I spend 8 hours hanging out at the airport waiting for my 8:30 pm flight to…. AUCKLAND!!!! I fly out of Canada on a Wednesday (Sept. 14), and get to the other side of the world at 6:30am NZ time on Friday morning. It’s getting close! And starting to feel much more realistic!

If all goes as planned, I’ll be picked up at the airport in Auckland and taken to my new home and job for the next 8 or so months at LC Horse Farms (www.lchorsefarm.com).

I have no idea what to expect, and therefore no idea what to buy or pack for my trip. Of course, breeches and a helmet, boots, muck boots (cause I know I’ll be doing lots of that!), running shoes, and all the other necessities. You have no idea how excited I am to pursue my dream in the horse industry and travel while gaining experience in the industry.

I had my second appointment at Legacy yesterday with Dr. Pethrick (chiro) who assessed me again. I swear, I’ve got the assessment routine so down I can assess myself by now. He said that with my shoulder he wants me to do some work activating my lat muscles, which are the big muscles in the back that keep your shoulders down and back, because

when I raise my arms above my head when being assessed my tendency is to scrunch my shoulders up in compensation for not using the lat muscle. He also gave me a couple exercises to improve the stability and movement in my hips. Links to these are at the bottom of the page. The third link is the exercise for “waking up” the lats.

After assessing me he did some active release on my hip and shoulder. It ended not being as painful as I thought, my AT has done worse anyway. Basically it was deep tissue massage, while moving the joint and muscles being worked on. He also did a chiro adjusted my hip. I must say, he is very good at his job. So far, besides my regular AT, he’s one of the only ones I’ve felt confident in and I found it easy to talk to him. I’m not always the most trustworthy with doctors.. I’ve been through a few who don’t listen well. He told me to come back in two weeks, unless everything has been phenomenal and I don’t feel I need to.

One day at a time.

So, as a result of all this good news and pain free week I’ve had, I’ve moved back into my strength training routine and I’ll start back riding full time again on Monday. My AT said she’d help me set up a strength fitness plan, so I’ll go in and see her after competing Thursday. Now we get to see if this painlessness lasts once I start working my body again. The real test will be Heart of the Continent, which starts Thursday and goes through till Sunday. As I recall, the last show wasn’t so great on the pain front and that was only a three day show. But, one day at a time. That’s my motto and I’m sticking to it.

What have we learned from this? Equestrian is definitely a sport and definitely requires cross-training to develop and maintain the muscles necessary to ride properly AND effectively. Anybody who says otherwise is a fool.

Very exciting! Will is being moved home next week to our farm in Carman, and he is currently advertised for sale but if he isn’t sold by September yes my mom is going to keep him over the winter for me. A few months off never hurt anybody!